Abortion bill violates human rights

Ken Orr, Right to Life spokesman

Opinion

In your August 12 editorial John Jones claims that there are two groups, religious conservatives and feminists, who are totally opposed to each other in relation to abortion.

This is not a religious issue, this is a human rights issue. It is not necessary to be religious to defend the right of every human being from conception to natural death.

The feminist movement, when founded, was wholly opposed to abortion as violence against women — they believed that every woman had a right to be born. The feminist movement has been infiltrated by those who believe that women will not be free until they have the right to kill their children before birth.

The Abortion Legislation Bill represents an unprecedented attack on the human rights of New Zealanders. The bill was passed at its first reading by 94 to 23 on Thursday, August 8.

This Government bill was presented to Parliament by the Minister of Justice at the direction of the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, who instructed the Minister in a letter of February 25, 2018 to seek advice from the Law Commission on proposed legislation to take abortion out of the Crimes Act and to make abortion “a reproductive choice for women”. It was her belief that abortion, the killing of an unborn child, should no longer be a crime.

The Minister, in introducing this bill to Parliament, said he rejected the notion that abortion entailed killing another human being, and he accepted “on legal and moral grounds the established jurisprudence in New Zealand that human rights do not accrue until human life is possible”. This was a very important statement that rejects the humanity of the unborn child, and that it is a member of the human family. It denies that the child is the bearer of human rights, the foundation right being an inalienable right to life.

Mr Little’s statement violates the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights which affirms in Article 3: Everyone has a right to life, liberty, and security of person. It also violates the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which states in its preamble that the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.

The Minister’s statement is challenged when he states that, “rights do not accrue until human life is possible”.

The Royal Commission on Contraception Sterilisation and Abortion, in its report to Parliament in 1977, and in upholding the status of the unborn child, stated: “The unborn child, as one of the weakest, the most vulnerable and most defenceless forms of humanity, should receive protection. From a biological point of view there is no argument as to when life begins. Evidence was given to us by eminent scientists from all over the world. None of them suggested that human life begins at any other time than at conception.”

Why then is the Minister ignoring the findings of this Royal Commission appointed by the third Labour government, upholding the humanity of the unborn child from conception?

The bill violates the conscience rights of doctors who, if they refuse to kill the unborn child, are required to refer the woman to a doctor who will. The bill also violates the right of free speech and assembly by banning people from gathering within 150 metres of an abortion clinic. This isolates and deprives abandoned women seeking an abortion from accepting help and support from those assembled. A pro-life group that offers help to women at the Hastings Hospital have helped to save the lives of 36 babies from abortion in recent years. Our women and their precious unborn deserve better than abortion.